News Releases

Aug132014

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement after House Democrat Leader, Nancy Pelosi, urged the President to circumvent Congress and order “the broadest possible” executive amnesty:

“Recent developments suggest the President’s planned executive amnesty could be increasingly imminent and broad in scope. House Democrat Leader Pelosi—clearly one of the White House’s closest allies—has just urged the President to issue ‘the broadest possible’ executive actions. Open borders groups have grown bolder and louder in their unlawful demands, launching a campaign for the President to ‘go big,’ and demanding that he ‘stand up’ to Congress and ‘expand DACA.’

Will Congress defend itself? Will it defend the country's laws, its people, and the idea that a nation has enforceable borders that cannot be waived away with the flick of a pen?

While the Senate recesses, activist groups and special interest lobbyists are huddling with the White House to implement through executive action that which Congress explicitly rejected. These are the same groups who met to devise the Senate’s ‘Gang of Eight’ plan, until that effort was exposed and then halted by the American people and their representatives in the House.

It is chilling to consider now that these groups, frustrated in their aims by our Constitutional system of government, are plotting with the Obama Administration to collect their spoils through executive fiat.

The Associated Press writes:

‘White House officials are making plans to act before November's mid-term elections to grant work permits to potentially millions of immigrants who are in this country illegally…White House officials led by Domestic Policy Council Director Cecilia Munoz and White House Counsel Neil Eggleston, along with Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, have been working to chart a plan on executive actions Obama could take, hosting frequent meetings with interest groups… the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says it is actively working to determine whether there are steps Obama could take by executive action that could help the business community.’

So, with American workers hurting, special interest groups are collaborating with the White House on measures that would pull down wages and impoverish working Americans?

The steps that must be taken are clear: the Senate must vote on the House-passed measure to stop these unlawful actions. It is true that Majority Leader Reid is blocking it from a vote. But Reid acts only with the blessing of his members in the Democrat conference—so the American people have the power to force it to a vote through their elected Senators.

Any Senator who fails to request such a vote is complicit in these planned actions.

The American people have begged and pleaded for years for our immigration laws to be enforced. But the politicians have refused.

Now these planned executive actions would nullify our laws, invite a massive new wave of unimpeded illegality, and strip the American people of their lawful right to have their jobs and communities protected.

This must be stopped.

And the American people have the power to stop it. That begins with asking a simple question: where do your Senators stand?”